Swaziland cash crunch “critical”, AIDS spending hit
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A budget crunch in Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarchy, has reached a “critical stage” with the government struggling to maintain spending on HIV/AIDS, education and the elderly, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday. In a damning assessment of the landlocked southern African nation, the IMF said proposed spending cuts had been undermined by “overruns” in defence outlays, leading to a 2011/12 budget deficit projection of 10 percent of GDP. Swaziland’s original target had been 7. …